21. WINTER IN EHRENBERG

WE ASKED my sister, Mrs. Penniman, to come out
and spend the winter with us, and to bring her son,
who was in most delicate health. It was said that the
climate of Ehrenberg would have a magical effect
upon all diseases of the lungs or throat. So, to save
her boy, my sister made the long and arduous trip
out from New England, arriving in Ehrenberg in
October.

What a joy to see her, and to initiate her into the
ways of our life in Arizona! Everything was new,
everything was a wonder to her and to my nephew.
At first, he seemed to gain perceptibly, and we had
great hopes of his recovery.

It was now cool enough to sleep indoors, and we began
to know what it was to have a good night's rest.

But no sooner had we gotten one part of our life
comfortably arranged, before another part seemed to
fall out of adjustment. Accidents and climatic conditions
kept my mind in a perpetual state of unrest.

Our dining-room door opened through two small
rooms into the kitchen, and one day, as I sat at the
table, waiting for Jack to come in to supper, I heard
a strange sort of crashing noise. Looking towards
the kitchen, through the vista of open doorways, I

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saw Ellen rush to the door which led to the courtyard.
She turned a livid white, threw up her hands, and
cried, ‘‘“Great God! the Captain!”’’ She was transfixed
with horror.

I flew to the door, and saw that the pump had
collapsed and gone down into the deep sulphur well.
In a second, Jack's head and hands appeared at the
edge; he seemed to be caught in the dÉbris of rotten
timber. Before I could get to him, he had scrambled
half way out. ‘‘“Don't come near this place,”’’ he
cried, ‘‘“it's all caving in!”’’

And so it seemed; for, as he worked himself up and
out, the entire structure fell in, and half the corral
with it, as it looked to me.

Jack escaped what might have been an unlucky bath
in his sulphur well, and we all recovered our composure
as best we could.

Surely, if life was dull at Ehrenberg, it could not
be called exactly monotonous. We were not obliged
to seek our excitement outside: we had a plenty of it,
such as it was, within our walls.

My confidence in Ehrenberg, however, as a salubrious
dwelling-place, was being gradually and literally
undermined. I began to be distrustful of the very
ground beneath my feet. Ellen felt the same way,
evidently, although we did not talk much about it.
She probably longed also for some of her own kind;
and when, one morning, we went into the dining-room
for breakfast, Ellen stood, hat on, bag in hand, at the

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door. Dreading to meet my chagrin, she said: ‘‘“Goodbye,
Captain; good-bye, missis; you've been very kind
to me. I'm leaving on the stage for Tucson—where
I first started for, you know.”’’

And she tripped out and climbed up into the dusty,
rickety vehicle called “the stage.” I had felt so
safe about Ellen, as I did not know that any stage line
ran through the place.

And now I was in a fine plight! I took a sunshade,
and ran over to Fisher's house. “Mr. Fisher,
what shall I do? Ellen has gone to Tucson!”

Fisher bethought himself, and we went out together
in the village. Not a woman to be found who would
come to cook for us! There was only one thing to do.
The Quartermaster was allowed a soldier, to assist in
the Government work. I asked him if he understood
cooking; he said he had never done any, but he would
try, if I would show him how.

This proved a hopeless task, and I finally gave it up.
Jack dispatched an Indian runner to Fort Yuma,
ninety miles or more down river, begging Captain
Ernest to send us a soldier-cook on the next boat.

This was a long time to wait; the inconveniences
were intolerable: there were our four selves, Patrocina
and Jesusíta, the soldier-clerk and the Indian, to
be provided for: Patrocina prepared carni seca with
peppers, a little boy came around with cuajada, a
delicious sweet curd cheese, and I tried my hand at
bread, following out Ellen's instructions.

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How often I said to my husband, “If we must live
in this wretched place, let's give up civilization and
live as the Mexicans do! They are the only happy
beings around here.

“Look at them, as you pass along the street! At
nearly any hour in the day you can see them, sitting
under their ramáda, their backs propped against the
wall of their casa, calmly smoking cigarettes and
gazing at nothing, with a look of ineffable contentment
upon their features! They surely have solved the
problem of life!”

But we seemed never to be able to free ourselves
from the fetters of civilization, and so I struggled on.

The weather was now fairly comfortable, and in
the evenings we sat under the ramáda, in front of the
house, and watched the beautiful pink glow which
spread over the entire heavens and illuminated the
distant mountains of Lower California. I have never
seen anything like that wonderful color, which spread
itself over sky, river, and desert. For an hour, one
could have believed oneself in a magician's realm.

At about this time, the sad-eyed Patrocina found it
expedient to withdraw into the green valleys of Lower
California, to recuperate for a few months. With
the impish Jesusíta in her arms, she bade me a
mournful good-bye. Worthless as she was from the
standpoint of civilized morals, I was attached to her
and felt sorry to part with her.

Then I took a Mexican woman from Chihuahua.

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Now the Chihuahuans hold their heads high, and it
was rather with awe that I greeted the tall middle-aged
Chihuahuan lady who came to be our little son's
nurse. Her name was Angela. “Angel of light,” I
thought, how fortunate I am to get her!

After a few weeks, Fisher observed that the whole
village was eating Ferris ham, an unusual delicacy
in Ehrenberg, and that the Goldwaters' had sold
none. So he suggested that our commissary storehouse
be looked to; and it was found that a dozen
hams or so had been withdrawn from their canvas
covers, the covers stuffed with straw, and hung back
in place. Verily the Chihuahuan was adding to her
pin-money in a most unworthy fashion, and she had
to go. After that, I was left without a nurse. My
little son was now about nine months old.

Milk began to be more plentiful at this season, and,
with my sister's advice and help, I decided to make
the one great change in a baby's life—i.e., to take him
from his mother. Modern methods were unknown
then, and we had neither of us any experience in
these matters and there was no doctor in the place.

The result was, that both the baby and myself
were painfully and desperately ill and not knowing
which way to turn for aid, when, by a lucky turn of
Fortune's wheel, our good, dear Doctor Henry
Lippincott came through Ehrenberg on his way out
to the States. Once more he took care of us, and
it is to him that I believe I owe my life.

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Captain Ernest sent us a cook from Yuma, and
soon some officers came for the duck-shooting. There
were thousands of ducks around the various lagoons
in the neighborhood, and the sport was rare. We had
all the ducks we could eat.

Then came an earthquake, which tore and rent the
baked earth apart. The ground shivered, the windows
rattled, the birds fell close to the ground and could
not fly, the stove-pipes fell to the floor, the thick walls
cracked, and finally, the earth rocked to and fro like
some huge thing trying to get its balance.

It was in the afternoon. My sister and I were sitting
with our needle-work in the living-room. Little
Harry was on the floor, occupied with some toys. I
was paralyzed with fear; my sister did not move. We
sat gazing at each other, scarce daring to breathe,
expecting every instant the heavy walls to crumble
about our heads. The earth rocked and rocked, and
rocked again, then swayed and swayed and finally was
still. My sister caught Harry in her arms, and then
Jack and Willie came breathlessly in. ‘‘“Did you feel
it?”’’ said Jack.

‘‘“Did we feel it!”’’ said I, scornfully.

Sarah was silent, and I looked so reproachfully at
Jack, that he dropped his light tone, and said: ‘‘“It
was pretty awful. We were in the Goldwaters' store,
when suddenly it grew dark and the lamps above
our heads began to rattle and swing, and we all
rushed out into the middle of the street and stood,

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rather dazed, for we scarcely knew what had happened;
then we hurried home. But it's all over
now.”’’

‘‘“I do not believe it,”’’ said I; “ we shall have more”;
and, in fact, we did have two light shocks in the
night, but no more followed, and the next morning,
we recovered, in a measure, from our fright and went
out to see the great fissures in that treacherous crust
of earth upon which Ehrenberg was built.

I grew afraid, after that, and the idea that the
earth would eventually open and engulf us all took
possession of my mind.

My health, already weakened by shocks and severe
strains, gave way entirely. I, who had gloried in
the most perfect health, and had a constitution of
iron, became an emaciated invalid.

From my window, one evening at sundown, I saw a
weird procession moving slowly along towards the
outskirts of the village. It must be a funeral, thought
I, and it flashed across my mind that I had never
seen the burying-ground.

A man with a rude cross led the procession. Then
came some Mexicans with violins and guitars. After
the musicians, came the body of the deceased, wrapped
in a white cloth, borne on a bier by friends, and followed
by the little band of weeping women, with
black ribosos folded about their heads. They did not
use coffins at Ehrenberg, because they had none, I
suppose.

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The next day I asked Jack to walk to the grave-yard
with me. He postponed it from day to day, but I insisted
upon going. At last, he took me to see it.

There was no enclosure, but the bare, sloping, sandy
place was sprinkled with graves, marked by heaps of
stones, and in some instances by rude crosses of wood,
some of which had been wrenched from their upright
position by the fierce sand-storms. There was not a
blade of grass, a tree, or a flower. I walked about
among these graves, and close beside some of them I
saw deep holes and whitened bones. I was quite ignorant
or unthinking, and asked what the holes were.

‘‘“It is where the coyotes and wolves come in the
nights,”’’ said Jack.

My heart sickened as I thought of these horrors,
and I wondered if Ehrenberg held anything in store
for me worse than what I had already seen. We
turned away from this unhallowed grave-yard and
walked to our quarters. I had never known much
about “nerves,” but I began to see spectres in the
night, and those ghastly graves with their coyote-holes
were ever before me. The place was but a stone's
throw from us, and the uneasy spirits from these
desecrated graves began to haunt me. I could not sit
alone on the low porch at night, for they peered
through the lattice, and mocked at me, and beckoned.
Some had no heads, some no arms, but they pointed
of nodded towards the grewsome burying-ground:
“You'll be with us soon, you'll be with us soon.”